Spill plaintiffs: Halliburton tried to hide 'callous disregard'

By Harry R. Weber, Houston Chronicle

Published 10:14 pm, Friday, March 22, 2013

Lawyers for individuals and businesses claiming damages from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill say Halliburton's delay in turning over key evidence in an ongoing civil trial shows the same recklessness that helped cause the disaster.

For nearly three years, Halliburton failed to hand over cement samples that may have been used with the BP well that blew out, spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.

Lawyers for a steering committee representing plaintiffs said in a federal court filing Friday that the cement contractor's conduct is part of “an effort by upper management to ratify and conceal Halliburton's pre-blowout callous disregard for safety.”

The lawyers did not say they would be seeking sanctions against Halliburton in the trial, as BP and the state of Alabama are. Instead, the committee said it would leave it up to U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of New Orleans to determine if Halliburton should be held in contempt.

Possible sanctions could include preventing Halliburton from using certain defenses at the trial, which could make it harder for the company to challenge a finding of gross negligence. Such a finding would allow punitive damages against the company for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Halliburton has not yet filed responses to the latest motions.

Last week at the trial before Barbier, Halliburon lawyer Don Godwin acknowledged that officials recently discovered cement samples possibly tied to the ill-fated drilling project that weren't turned over to the Justice Department after the oil spill. The company says the samples apparently were misplaced.

The Plaintiffs' Steering Committee alleges in its filing that Halliburton “willfully and intentionally” concealed or otherwise failed to preserve and produce potentially relevant evidence before the trial.

BP, in its motion for sanctions Thursday night, asked the court to find that Halliburton's final cement design was unstable and caused hydrocarbons to enter BP's undersea Macondo well as workers were trying to seal it for production later.

“Halliburton's conduct has undermined the integrity of these proceedings and severely prejudiced BP and the other parties,” BP said in its motion.

BP said that any testing of the samples recently found could be difficult because they probably have deteriorated given the amount of time that has passed.

“The cumulative effect of Halliburton's pattern of destruction and spoliation of evidence has been to deprive the court and the parties of significant post-incident evidence relevant to the inherent quality and performance of the cement Halliburton provided for the job at the Macondo well, and the role of that Halliburton slurry design as a cause of the events of April 20, 2010,” BP said.

BP also wants the court to find that the cement was unstable based on testimony this week by former Halliburton lab manager Timothy Quirk, who said that soon after the blowout a company official asked him to test cement made with ingredients similar to those used in the Macondo well. Quirk said he told the official the results, but then threw away his notes because the colleague told him not to record the results.

He said he does not remember the density of the cement in the test — a number that would have indicated whether it was stable.

Alabama planned to file its motion for sanctions Saturday.

In an email to the Houston Chronicle after BP filed its motion, Godwin said the motion has no merit and vowed an aggressive response.

“BP is attempting to deflect attention from itself. Halliburton will not be intimidated by BP for things it did not do,” he said.

The Macondo well blew out in mile-deep water off the coast of Louisiana, triggering an explosion on the Transocean-owned Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers. Halliburton provided the cement intended to keep oil and gas from flowing into the well.

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Barbier already has refused to drop gross negligence claims against Halliburton, BP and Transocean at this stage in the trial. He did dismiss gross negligence claims Wednesday against two lesser players on the Macondo project.